April 30, 2008

Those Clever, Dastardly Iranians! Bamboozling Us with Facts ... and Even (gasp!) Photographs!

Barbed wire and antiaircraft guns ring a maze of buildings in the Iranian desert that lie at the heart of the West's five-year standoff with Tehran over its program to enrich uranium.

It is a place of secrets that Iran loves to boast about, clouding the effort's real status and making Western analysts all the more eager for solid details and clues. Tehran insists that its plans are peaceful. But Washington and its allies see a looming threat.

The sprawling site, known as Natanz, made headlines recently because Iran is testing a new generation of centrifuges there that spin faster and, in theory, can more rapidly turn natural uranium into fuel for reactors or nuclear arms. The new machines are also meant to be more reliable than their forerunners, which often failed catastrophically.

On April 8, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited the desert site, and Iran released 48 photographs of the tour, providing the first significant look inside the atomic riddle.

"They're remarkable," Jeffrey G. Lewis, an arms control specialist at the New America Foundation, a nonprofit research group in Washington, said of the photographs. "We're learning things."

Most important, the pictures give the first public glimpse of the new centrifuge, known as the IR-2, for Iranian second generation. There were no captions with the photographs, so nuclear analysts around the globe are scrutinizing the visual evidence to size up the new machine, its probable efficiency and its readiness for the tough job of uranium enrichment. They see the photos as an intelligence boon.

"This is intel to die for," Andreas Persbo, an analyst in London at the Verification Research, Training and Information Center, a private group that promotes arms control, said in a comment on the blog site Arms Control Wonk.

"An intelligence boon"! "Intel to die for"! And no one had to die! Iran just ... released the photographs!

But Iran didn't provide ... captions!

Who knew such evil lurked in the hearts of those endlessly scheming Iranians! It is ghastly! Apalling!! WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!

Oh, yes, we are:

Of the 48 photographs Iran released, Western analysts gave special scrutiny to one showing Mr. Ahmadinejad and his entourage viewing a disassembled IR-2, its guts arrayed on a table. Clearly visible are its casing, inner rotor, motor and several other critical parts.

Arms Control Wonk, which Dr. Lewis of the New America Foundation runs, led a discussion of the photo. Most comments focused on parts. But Geoffrey E. Forden, an arms expert at M.I.T., noted that the table also held an Iranian flag. [!!!!!]

"Indigenous manufacturing of sophisticated components is something to be very proud of," he wrote. "And showing them with an Iranian flag is a very good way of graphically proclaiming it."

One surprise of the tour was the presence of Iran's defense minister, Mostafa Mohammad Najjar. His attendance struck some analysts as odd given Iran's claim that the desert labors are entirely peaceful in nature. In one picture, Mr. Najjar, smiling widely, appears to lead the presidential retinue.

"The presence of Iran's defense minister"! In a photograph that Iran voluntarily released! Just one of 48 photographs! That Iran voluntarily released!

It is obvious to anyone, unless you hate America to the marrow of your bones and fervently hope that all of the United States goes up in a mushroom cloud in the immediate future, that the defense minister would only be there if Iran is going to have nuclear weapons tomorrow. And tomorrow -- maybe later today, you can never be sure with such deeply malevolent people -- WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!!

The story makes it painfully obvious that maybe -- if Iran actually intends to manufacture nuclear weapons -- if Iran is able to successfully conquer the numerous and significant technical problems that still lie ahead -- if a number of other factors all work out in the required way -- then, if Iran actually wanted to have nuclear weapons, maybe Iran would have them sometime between 2010 and 2015. Of course: "Iran insists it wants to make only reactor fuel for producing electricity."

I tell you, Iran's "secret" plant and its "secret" plans TO KILL US ALL remind me of my best friend in high school. She kept "secrets" the same exact way. Blabbermouth. Yeah, you, Ellen! Pfaugh.

But you must always remember to be afraid, very, very afraid, as the Times helpfully reminds us at the end of the story:

Some analysts see the centrifuges, despite the disclosures of the presidential tour, as a continuing enigma.

Ultimately, Tehran could use them for good or ill, for lighting cities or destroying them. Only time, they say, is likely to reveal Iran's true intentions.

Only time will tell! DA DUH DUMMMMMM!!!!

Has Iran invaded and occupied any of its neighbors? Nope. Has Iran traveled halfway around the world to invade another country? No way. Has Iran's criminal invasion and endless occupation of a country that never threatened it unleashed a series of events that have led to the slaughter of more than a million innocent people, and made four million additional people refugees? No, sir. Does Iran keep threatening the United States by saying that "all options are on the table"? Does Iran threaten to attack the United States because the U.S. actually has a huge nuclear arsenal?

A huge nuclear arsenal that, by the way, the U.S. and all its leading politicians keep threatening to unleash on Iran -- keeping in mind that all of this happens as the signs continue to mount that a U.S. attack on Iran becomes more certain and more imminent by the day?

No.

The United States government and its major functionaries keep threatening to entirely destroy Iran -- which has done precisely nothing of a threatening nature. Nothing.

But Iran releases photographs. 48 photographs.

Evil, I say! EVIL!

They must be stopped! NOW!!!!!

P.S. And if -- if Iran intended to acquire nuclear weapons -- then I say, as I have said before...